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When I started my foundry career in 1984 I could not have imagined that our industry would possibly change as much as it has in just 30 years. The stories my father told me about how and why my grandfather started our company in the middle of World War II, and the stories he told me about his own 42-year career compared to my experiences, versus the stories my son tells me now about his foundry participation, all seem to be so conflicted. We certainly cannot be describing the same industry.

In their well-received report at WFC 2014 – “Nothing is Impossible: Advancements in the Field of Inorganic Binder Systems” — a team of researchers and product developers at ASK Chemicals described how some of the difficulties working with inorganic binder systems have promoted misconceptions about their effectiveness, and the possibilities for working with them successfully.

"As hard as I work every day, shouldn’t I have 'arrived” by now?" According to Andy Core, that’s a question that nags at managers and executives striving to make each day productive — but bound to to-do lists and tormented by having too few hours to complete every task well. All you do is work, but you have only mediocre results to show for it.

The shortest distance between two points is a straight line, on paper, that is, but in the convoluted real world we have to learn to live with such truisms and still reason our way through the contradictions....More